Celebrating the Worlds of Black Poetry
On display in Rose Library, September 2024.
Selected by Brian Flota in partnership with the Furious Flower Poetry Center.
The first Furious Flower Poetry Conference was held in 1994, bringing together dozens of Black poets, including the legendary poet Gwendolyn Brooks, to James Madison University’s campus. Due to the overwhelming success of that initial conference, the Furious Flower Poetry Conference has been held every ten years since. Following the second conference in 2004, JMU chartered the Furious Flower Poetry Center, making it the first academic center devoted to Black poetry in the United States.
From September 18th to the 21st, 2024, the fourth Furious Flower Poetry Conference, Furious Flower IV, will convene here at JMU.
This display features books of poetry written by past and present participants in the conference. These selections are a celebration of the beautiful, brilliant, and bold array of styles and content found in Black poetry from all over the world.
If you’re interested in diving deeper into the work of Furious Flower, be sure to check out their ongoing publication, The Fight & The Fiddle, or peruse the Furious Flower Syllabus Project for classroom ideas, or explore over 50 years of materials from the Furious Flower Poetry Center Records in the JMU Libraries’ Special Collections.
